Heroes for My Son (8 page)

High school student. Civil rights activist.

 

 

I
n 1951 Barbara Johns's school held 450 black students, all of them crowded into a building meant for 200.

Their books were tattered. Their classrooms had no heat.

 

One morning, when she missed her bus, she waited, hoping another might come.

Another did.

But it blew right by her, filled with white kids, heading to their newer, less crowded school.

As the bus disappeared, Barbara decided she'd organize a walkout.

 

Before Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., the early civil rights movement relied a great deal on the power of normal, unknown teenagers.

 

Teenagers.

 

Thanks to sixteen-year-old Barbara Johns, Moton High School held a two-week strike.

The NAACP helped them sue for an integrated school.

And it became one of the five cases that the Supreme Court reviewed when it declared segregation unconstitutional in
Brown v. Board of Education
.

 

For her reward, Barbara's house was burned down.

She never regretted it.
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Political captive. Leader of Burma's democratic movement.

 

 

W
ith a crowd of 500,000 watching her, Aung San Suu Kyi seized the microphone. She was just a housewife. She had never held political office.

All she wanted was freedom—true democracy—for her beloved country of Burma. Her plan? That was the surprise.

She stuck to one principle: nonviolent demonstration.

 

The brutal Burmese leaders reacted by killing hundreds and crushing the pro-democracy rallies.

Suu Kyi's response was the same. Peace.

 

They placed her under house arrest without charges or a trial.

When her pro-democracy party won the first Burmese elections held in thirty years, making her the rightful prime minister, the junta ignored the results.

When photographs of her began to suddenly appear on street corners, Suu Kyi's very image was banned.

And when they offered her a way out—her freedom in return for leaving the country—Suu Kyi refused. She would never leave Burma. Not until it was free. Even if that meant she never would be.

 

She never fought with force. But she never backed down.

 

In 2003 Suu Kyi was again placed under house arrest.

She's still there.

Over fourteen years of detention so far.

She has the key—all she has to do is leave. Behave.

Some people just don't know how.
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Businessman. Political strategist. Optimist.

 

 

I
t's not because he helped establish AmeriCorps, enabling over 500,000 young people to do community service across our country.

 

It's not because he transformed millions of lives through his leadership on the Welfare-to-Work Partnership.

 

It's not because he fought so bravely against the cancer that killed him.

 

It's not even because he helped elect a president.

 

It's simply because, when I was twenty-one years old and he was running a small business in Boston, Eli Segal took a chance on me—his overenthusiastic intern—and offered me my very first grown-up job.

 

He knew I was too young. He used to lie about my age to people we would meet with.

 

But he believed in young people. And he believed in me.
H

 

THE AMERICORPS PLEDGE

I will get things done for America to make our people safer, smarter, and healthier.

I will bring Americans together to strengthen our communities.

Faced with apathy, I will take action.

Faced with conflict, I will seek common ground.

Faced with adversity, I will persevere.

I will carry this commitment with me this year and beyond.

I am an AmeriCorps member…and I am going to get things done.

Lawyer. Senator. President.

 

 

T
oday there is a phrase for it: political suicide.

 

It's what happens when you say something that most people disagree with.

 

In 1858, while Abraham Lincoln was trying to get elected to the United States Senate, Stephen Douglas represented “most people.”

 

Douglas said that blacks had no rights.

 

He said that the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness did not apply to them.

 

The Supreme Court of the United States agreed.

 

But Abraham Lincoln didn't.

 

Lincoln stood up.

 

Lincoln spoke his mind.

 

And Lincoln lost.

 

He was sent home with nothing.

 

It
was
political suicide.

 

But it was worth it.
*

Special Olympics swimmer.

 

 

A
ndy Miyares was born with Down's syndrome.

 

At nine months old, because of a lack of muscle control, he couldn't sit up, and he couldn't crawl.

 

But his parents had an idea—swimming.

 

The doctors said Andy wouldn't walk until he was three years old.

 

He proved them wrong at thirteen months.

 

He learned math by counting laps.

 

Social skills from competing in meets.

 

At eight, he entered Special Olympics.

 

At twenty-one, he swam the San Francisco Bay.

 

And at twenty-three, he was invited to the Special Olympics World Summer Games.

 

Andy's hands and feet are the size of a five-year-old's; his height only five-feet-one-inch tall.

 

Even in the Special Olympics, people assume he's an underdog.

 

But he's earned fifteen world records.
*